Introduction
Calendar Current Briefing Activities
Readings in Beatnik Culture
The Beat Generation Like the French Impressionist artists of
Paris, the Beat writers were a small group of close friends
first, and a movement later. The term "Beat Generation" gradually
came to represent an entire period in time, but the entire original
Beat Generation in literature
was
small enough to have fit into a couple of cars (at times this
nearly happened). The core group consisted of Jack Kerouac,
Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs, who met
in the neighborhood surrounding Columbia University in uptown
Manhattan in the mid-40's. They picked up Gregory Corso in Greenwich
Village and found Herbert Huncke hanging around Times Square.
They then migrated to San Francisco where they expanded their
group consciousness by meeting Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Michael McClure, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch. Most of them struggled
for years to get published, and it is inspiring to learn how
they managed to keep each other from giving up hope when it
seemed their writings would never be understood.
Their moment of fame began with a legendary poetry
reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. After the first
wave of Beat writers became famous, a second wave followed.
Some later arrivals to the crowd include Bob Kaufman, Diane
DiPrima, Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, Ray Bremser and Ted Joans.
The "latter day beats" added some much needed cultural diversity,
as well as an infusion of new ideas and talent, to the core
of white male friends that were the "classic beats". The ranks
of legendary Beat poets continues to slowly evolve; recently
more attention has been paid to other talented writers who had
gathered at the fringes of earlier Beat scenes, including Charles
Plymell, Jack Micheline, Herschel Silverman, Marty Matz, Ron
Whitehead, Jim Carroll, Janine Pommy-Vega and countless others.
It is not likely that today's generation-defining machinery
will ever again allocate so much "cultural influence" to such
a small and odd group of individuals. Defining generations is
big business these days, and you've got to look good on Total
Request Live to even have a chance.
If today's "Generation X" (or "Gen Y" or whatever
it's called) is like Woodstock, the Beat Generation was like
a small dark tavern at two in the morning, with a bunch of old
jazz musicians jamming on stage and Jack Kerouac buying rounds
at the bar. The phrase "Beat Generation" was invented by Jack
Kerouac in 1948 (for a discussion of the origin of this and
other labels, check out Lost, Beat and Hip). The phrase was
introduced to the general public in 1952 when Kerouac's friend
John Clellon Holmes wrote an article, 'This is the Beat Generation,'
for the New York Times Magazine (click here to read the complete
original text).
